This is the third blog entry about building a car transporter for my Lego train. The first attempt ended with a model that worked but was too wide and ungainly with an over-sized top deck. So, back to the building board.

The first thing I did was remove the upper deck and rebuild it. The ladders that are being used as runners for the cars slide into each other so I overlapped them by four studs. This also meant adding another layer of plates at one end to fill the difference in height between the lower ladder and the overlapping one. I rebuilt the deck to 28 studs long - the same length as the wagon base. I then swapped out the modified plates with Technic pin holes I had been using underneath the top desk for the red ones I had been using on the lower deck and strengthened the structure with some more red plates from the spares supply.

Having used the red mountings on the upper level, I now needed to find a way of attaching the rods to the lower level. I decided what I needed to do was build a new layer on the wagon base comprised of Technic beams, blocks and plates from the spares supply.

You can see here how I have attached the on-off ramps using the yellow 'handles' that came off both the wagon and the transporter.

With a gap in the middle I needed to check the spacing.

A downside to Technic beams are the rows of holes in the sides. Fortunately I know a way of hiding these. By using short Technic mounts you can attach other pieces perpendicular to the beam. I chose Lego Space U-beams from the spares supply. Adding detail like this is often called 'greebling' but in this case I realised after I'd put them on that these would make handy tie-bars to help secure the cars when they were on the wagon. So, if anyone asks, they're tie-bars and that was the plan all along. After I took this photo I realised they would interfere with the support mounts when the upper level was dropped so I inverted them.

I added the top layer. You can see quite clearly here how the ladders overlap.

The pressure sensor halfway along is supposed to be a weight gauge or something similar. It's attached using a short pin like the blue tie-bars. Sets that contain pieces like this often have a spare in, which is how this ended up in my spares box.

I then tested the spacing on the upper level. The two cars fitted neatly.

I checked the cars still fitted on the lower level as well.

I wasn't particularly happy with the wagon ends. I had attached the wagon ends pieces as 'gates' using hinges so they could swing out to let the cars on or off. However, this added two studs to the length of the wagon, leading to overhang problems again, the hinges weren't stiff enough to keep the gates closed, and above all it didn't look right. So I took the top deck off and used different hinges (again from the spares supply) to add small ramps using plates. I also added some modified 2x1 plates with a handle at the end along the edges of the top deck to act as tie-bars for cars parked on the top.

The new ramps weren't perfect but they looked better and were functional, so at this point I think the wagon is done. (Who am I kidding, I'm going to fiddle with these!)

However, even though this is done (fiddling notwithstanding), it has also put me in mind to hunt out two more cars to fill those gaps. A full transporter wagon will look pretty good I think.

Among adults who play model with Lego, there is a phrase for models like this. It's a MOC (My Own Creation). Although I did use the wagon that came in set 65002 as a base and borrowed heavily from the car transporter kit as a source of parts, I like to think I put enough work into getting this right to call it a MOC. I'm looking forward to seeing my cargo train pulling it around the tracks.